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A Big Thanks for Attending

This year's joint Annual Meeting was a huge success!

We wanted to send out a big thank you to all individuals who attended and made this year’s joint Annual Meeting special. Also we’d like to reach out to all speakers and panelists who dedicated their time to provide wonderful presentations and professional insights. Session recordings and presentations will be available soon.

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Featured Speakers

Micky Tripathi

Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP)

Daniel Polk

Special Agent, FBI Atlanta

Meeting Agenda

Wednesday, December 11

Session

1

Welcome and Chairman's Remarks

The Chair of The Sequoia Project’s Board of Directors opened the meeting, sharing highlights from 2024 and upcoming priorities for 2025.

David Horrocks

Chief Executive Officer - New York eHealth Collaborative

David Horrocks is the CEO of the New York eHealth Collaborative, a non-profit organization with a mission to improve healthcare and patient outcomes by collaboratively leading, connecting, and integrating health information exchange across New York State through the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY). David’s vision and strategic plan for the SHIN-NY centers around its designation as a public health tool used to make lives better.

Before joining NYeC in 2022, David was the CEO of CRISP, the state designated HIE for Maryland, a position he held since the organization’s launch in 2009. He also led CRISP Shared Services, a non-profit support organization serving member HIEs in five states. Prior to his role at CRISP, David was Senior Vice President at Erickson Retirement Communities, serving in several startup ventures and as Chief Information Officer. His earlier experience includes leadership and technologist roles with Visalign, an IT consulting firm, and AbiliTech, a nonprofit company providing technology services to people with disabilities.

David holds a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, and a DrPH and MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Speaker

David Horrocks

Board Chair
View Bio

Session

2

Keynote:

Perspectives from Assistant Secretary of Technology Policy and National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Dr. Micky Tripathi discussed the ambitious TEFCA ramp up plans for 2025, celebrate the pioneering QHINs and their Participants and Subparticipants, and shared ASTP’s vision for the future. 

Dr. Micky Tripathi

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Micky Tripathi is the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he leads the formulation of the federal health IT strategy and coordinates federal health IT policies, standards, programs, and investments. 

Dr. Tripathi has over 20 years of experience across the health IT landscape. He most recently served as Chief Alliance Officer for Arcadia, a health care data and software company focused on population health management and value-based care, the project manager of the Argonaut Project, an industry collaboration to accelerate the adoption of FHIR, and a board member of HL7, the Sequoia Project, the CommonWell Health Alliance, and the CARIN Alliance.

Dr. Tripathi served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit health IT advisory and clinical data analytics company. He was also the founding President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, a statewide HIE partnered with the Regenstrief Institute, an Executive Advisor to investment firm LRVHealth, and a Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

He holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and an AB in political science from Vassar College. Prior to receiving his PhD, he was a Presidential Management Fellow and a senior operations research analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, DC, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.

Keynote

Micky Tripathi

ASTP/ONC
View Bio

SESSION

3

What is Treatment?

This panel explained the Treatment Exchange Purpose in TEFCA and debated whether treatment should be redefined when used to compel query responses in frameworks and networks.

Video Coming Soon

Panelists

Deven McGraw

Citizen Health
View Bio

Deven McGraw, JD, MPH, LLM

Chief Regulatory & Privacy Officer - Citizen Health

Deven McGraw is the Chief Regulatory and Privacy Officer for Citizen Health, a platform for patients to gather, manage, and share their complete health histories (previously known as Ciitizen and recently divested from Invitae). From 2015-2017, she directed U.S. health privacy and security as Deputy Director, Health Information Privacy at the HHS Office for Civil Rights and Chief Privacy Officer (Acting) of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Dr. Peter Schoch

Kno2
View Bio

Dr. Peter Schoch

Chief Health Officer - Kno2

Dr. Peter Schoch is the Chief Health Officer at Kno2. As CHO, Dr. Schoch will lead our efforts in advancing interoperability and fostering meaningful connections between healthcare providers.

Dr. Schoch brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Kno2 including driving transformational change in care delivery, practice transformation, and home and post-acute based services for two major health systems and two decades of serving healthcare as a physician in internal medicine.

Prior to joining Kno2, Dr. Schoch worked at AdventHealth for 5 years where he served as the Senior Vice President of Population Health at AdventHealth, President of AdventHealth Physician Network CF, CMO of Integrated Health Services and had strategic and operational responsibility for home care, hospice and DME/Infusion. Dr. Schoch led the largest CIN in the health system to success in 9 value-based agreements and one large direct to employer agreement over 5 years and was instrumental in the development and successful launch of new care models in primary care.

His real-world insights and visionary perspective will be instrumental in driving our mission to lead the future of healthcare communication as we work towards thoughtfully solving healthcare’s biggest challenges.

Michael Marchant

Sutter Health
View Bio

Michael Marchant

Director of Digital Applications - Sutter Health

Michael Marchant is a seasoned healthcare technology executive with over 30 years of leadership experience. His expertise lies in the strategic implementation and integration of complex enterprise systems and workflows across diverse healthcare environments. Michael has held pivotal roles with technology vendors, government contractors, and healthcare provider organizations, providing him with a well-rounded perspective on industry challenges and opportunities.

Passionate about advancing healthcare interoperability, Michael actively contributes to shaping the future of the industry through his leadership roles in various organizations. He serves as Chair of Epic’s Care Everywhere Governing Council and Co-Chair of the Carequality Advisory Committee. Additionally, he has been instrumental as Co-Chair of the AAMC's Diversity and Inclusion Workgroup for the past decade and has served as a two-time member of the HIMSS Interoperability Committee, as well as participating in the SDoH/Blockchain Task Force and several HL7 FHIR Accelerator workgroups.

Currently, Michael is the Director of Digital Applications at Sutter Health, where he leads the Sutter Community Connect and Enterprise Data Integration teams, driving innovation and collaboration to enhance patient care and data sharing.

Micky Tripathi

ASTP/ONC
View Bio

Dr. Micky Tripathi

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Micky Tripathi is the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he leads the formulation of the federal health IT strategy and coordinates federal health IT policies, standards, programs, and investments. 

Dr. Tripathi has over 20 years of experience across the health IT landscape. He most recently served as Chief Alliance Officer for Arcadia, a health care data and software company focused on population health management and value-based care, the project manager of the Argonaut Project, an industry collaboration to accelerate the adoption of FHIR, and a board member of HL7, the Sequoia Project, the CommonWell Health Alliance, and the CARIN Alliance.

Dr. Tripathi served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit health IT advisory and clinical data analytics company. He was also the founding President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, a statewide HIE partnered with the Regenstrief Institute, an Executive Advisor to investment firm LRVHealth, and a Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

He holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and an AB in political science from Vassar College. Prior to receiving his PhD, he was a Presidential Management Fellow and a senior operations research analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, DC, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.

SESSION

4

Patients in the Driver Seat

As consumers’ access to their own health data expands, what do patients and caregivers need to know about their rights? What are the challenges and how can we, as a community advancing interoperability, better support and protect patients?

Panelists

Moderator

Anna McCollister

Co-Chair, Consumer Engagement Strategy Workgroup
View Bio

Anna McCollister

Patient Engagement and Data Use, Access and Governance - Independent Consultant

Anna McCollister is a health technology entrepreneur, strategic consultant and reform advocate. Her work focuses on creating new ways to involve health care constituents in critical aspects of health research, care and treatment, as well as data governance, evidence development and policy reform.

Anna has founded two health technology startups: VitalCrowd, a Web-based collaboration platform for crowdsourcing the design of health research, and Galileo Analytics, a visual data exploration and analytics company aimed at democratizing access to and understanding of complex health data. Previously, she served as Chief Advocate for Participatory Research at the Scripps Research Translational Institute (SRTI). Through that work, Anna was a Co-Primary Investigator for the “All of Us“ Research Program, a centerpiece of the National Institutes of Health’s Precision Medicine Initiative.

Since 2019, Anna has worked as an independent consultant, advising C-Suite leaders and developing strategic approaches for engaging stakeholders, patients and advocacy groups in critical aspects of corporate and public policy. Anna’s work covers an array of issues and topics, but focuses heavily on data access, use, ethics and governance, with a goal of building corporate programs that enable companies and organizations to earn the trust of patients through action.

Anna’s passion for innovation in healthcare is rooted in her personal experiences living with type 1 diabetes. As an entrepreneur and advocate, she was among the founders of the #WeAreNotWaiting movement, a global patient-led hacker movement that helped accelerate the pace of diabetes device data access, connectivity and interoperability. She speaks frequently about the promise of digital health, the critical need for patient data access and the imperative and promise of using “real world” data to gain better insight into treatments for complex illness. In 2022, Anna was appointed by the GAO to serve on the federal Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC), which advises the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on federal health IT policy. In addition to her role on HITAC, she serves on a two FDA advisory committees and non-profit advisory boards, helping to facilitate patient centered design of products, policy and research.

Holly Miller

MedAllies
View Bio

Holly Miller, MD

Chief Medical Officer - MedAllies

Dr. Miller is an internist who has practiced medicine using several EHR systems and has over two decades of healthcare IT experience.

Since 2009, Dr. Miller has been the Chief Medical Officer of MedAllies a company that operates a Direct Health Information Service Provider (HISP) Network, a Carequality Network and one of the original TEFCA QHIN designated Networks; all in support of healthcare interoperability. At MedAllies, Dr. Miller provides collaborative operational, tactical, and strategic collaborative leadership.

Dr. Miller is currently a Chair, Co-Chair, or member of many Health Information Technology (HIT) Interoperability related committees and workgroups engaged in enhancing healthcare interoperability value. These include committees within the following organizations: Carequality; Sequoia; DaVinci; CMS: PACIO; and HIMSS. She continues to be a frequent speaker at national conferences.

Dr. Miller was formerly a VP and the CMIO of University Hospitals and Health Systems (UH), a community-based system with more than 150 locations, seven wholly owned and four affiliated hospitals throughout Northern Ohio. Prior to joining UH, she worked as an HIT Managing Director for the Cleveland Clinic where she also maintained a clinical practice in General Internal Medicine. She has been active in healthcare informatics research and has been a coinvestigator on multiple grants.

As a member of HIMSS since 1999, Dr. Miller is a past Vice Chair of the HIMSS Board and a past inaugural member of the HIMSS World-Wide Board. Her past roles within HIMSS also included being a physician leader of the HIMSS/AMDIS Physician Community, Chair of the HIMSS Interoperability Committee and serving as the Board Liaison to HIMSS Europe for four years. She was also active in a variety of previous S&I ONC committees and other state and government HIT committees. Dr. Miller earned her MBA at Hautes Etudes Commerciale in Paris and her Doctor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Josh Mast

Oracle Health
View Bio

Josh Mast

Director and Product Regulatory Strategist - Oracle Health

Joshua Mast, Director and Product Regulatory Strategist, Regulatory Strategy Team: My role involves review legislation and regulation to determine impact to ORACLE Cerner’s products and how our clients may use them for compliance with those regulations as well as educating others on those regulatory requirements. I am currently on the Board of Directors for the Sequoia Project, a Co-Chair and member of the Information Blocking Workgroup for the Sequoia Project’s Interoperability Matters group and will begin serving as the Chair of the EHRA Public Policy Committee in January 2023. My wife and I also have four crazy boys, including nearly three-year old twins, at home to teach us about sharing.

Cathriona Dolphin-Dempsey

Stanford Health Care
View Bio

Cathriona Dolphin-Dempsey

Background: I am originally from Galway, Ireland and living here in California since 2013

Achievements: At my organization we have met the Meaningful Use (MU) and MIPS requirements every year since inception and therefore obtained substantial $ for our organization.

I work on numerous project throughout the year and get great pleasure when we go live with zero tickets

Education: I am a qualified Registered Nurse, have a Masters in Health Informatics and PMP certified

Career: I have been working in Regulatory work for the past 10 years under the requirements for both In-Patient and Ambulatory regulatory programs.

Interests/Hobbies: I love the Irish game called Camogie. I have 3 North American medals with San Francisco camogie club, I have 11 All Ireland medals playing for my club, School and county in Ireland.

I also love volleyball of which I have 4 All Ireland medals for my school.

Contribution: I would love to be a part of the patient access group. I strongly believe all patients should have access and understand their own health record and its content.

SESSION

5

Advancing Public Health Use Cases

The CDC and ASTP want Public Health agencies to have data sharing capabilities on a par with the private sector. What are the challenges, and how do we expedite Public Health interoperability for the greater good?

Panelists

Moderator

Jim Jirjis, MD

CDC
View Bio

Jim Jirjis, MD, MBA, FACP

Division Director of Data Policy and Standards, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology - CDC

Jim Jirjis is Division Director of Data Policy and Standards within the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology at CDC. He is responsible for leading CDC’s interoperability and data policy and standards to ensure data transmitted across the public health ecosystem is robust, interoperable, and conforms to open data policies.
Prior to joining CDC, Jim was the chief health information officer for the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) Healthcare Clinical Service Group from 2013-2023. He oversaw data quality and governance for HCA’s clinical data enterprise and successfully automated most of the data mapping for all core data domains throughout HCA. He also served as HCA’s health IT data policy lead and was appointed to two terms on the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC)—advising ONC on public health reporting, pharmacy interoperability topic, and more.

Jim is a longtime champion of electronic medical record adoption and interoperability in the healthcare community. Before joining HCA, he practiced internal medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where he served as medical director of internal medicine and chief health information officer.

Craig Behm

CRISP
View Bio

Craig Behm

President and CEO - CRISP

As President and CEO, Craig is the lead executive responsible for developing and executing the strategic plan as well as ensuring strong financial controls and high-quality services. His focus is on driving interoperability and innovation by expanding Health Data Utilities through CRISP and member Health Information Exchanges across the country. He manages the senior team with an emphasis on fostering collaboration while advocating for the mission, vision, and values of both CRISP and CRISP Shared Services. Craig is also an instructor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Master’s program in Health Information Technology. Prior to supporting health IT efforts, Craig led the start-up and operations of three physician-led, Advance Payment Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organizations. He has a Master of Business Administration from Loyola University.

Tim Powell

Virginia Health Information
View Bio

Tim Powell

Senior Fellow of Public Health Informatics - J Michael Consulting

Tim Powell has worked as an applied public health epidemiologist and informatician for over 20 years. For most of his career Tim was with the Virginia Department of Health, where he held numerous roles as an epidemiologist working at the local, regional, and state level. In the later part of his career there Tim took on more leadership roles, serving as the Surveillance Chief, and Division Director for the divisions of Surveillance and Investigation and the division of informatics and information systems. Tim wrapped up his career at VDH serving as the Director of Informatics and data modernization for the agency.

Tim is currently a senior fellow of public health informatics at J Michael Consulting where he provides thought leadership and partners with federal, STLT, and private sector clients to identify and define solutions for public health interoperability and modernization. Tim has a Master of Public Health degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and graduate certificates in public health leadership and public health informatics from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the University of Illinois Chicago.

Michelle Meigs

APHL
View Bio

Michelle Meigs

Managing Director of Informatics - Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL)

Michelle Meigs is the Managing Director of Informatics at the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), where she leads a multidisciplinary team modernizing disease surveillance, laboratory systems, and emergency response capabilities. Under her leadership, APHL serves as a steward of critical public health data exchange infrastructure, enabling connectivity and shared services across 74 public health jurisdictions and thousands of data partners. Her team's nonprofit initiatives advance public health informatics while strengthening the national framework for disease monitoring and response. Prior to joining APHL in 2005, Michelle spent 10 years as an infectious disease bacteriologist and LIMS lead with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

SESSION

6

Unconference Sessions

Interactive peer-to-peer collaboration and learning. Attendees could choose from a variety of topics for participant-driven discussion in small groups facilitated by staff and guest experts.

  • What is Treatment?
  • TEFCA Community of Practice: A New Initiative?
  • Carequality Alignment with TEFCA

SESSION

7

Strategies to Bolster Trust

Leaders from The Sequoia Project, Carequality, and TEFCA presented recommendations to bolster trust in interoperability across all networks and frameworks.

Panelists

Moderator

John Kansky

IHIE
View Bio

John Kansky, MBA, MSE, CPHIMS

President and CEO - Indiana Health Information Exchange

John P. Kansky is the president and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange. Prior to joining IHIE, Kansky’s career included experience as a healthcare IT consultant, CIO, clinical engineer, and biomedical engineering researcher.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Regenstrief Institute, the Sequoia Project, eHealth Exchange Coordinating Committee and ONC’s HIT Advisory Committee. He is also an adjunct professor at Indiana University’s School of Public Health and served as vice chair of the HIMSS North America board and co-chaired the HITAC TEFCA Taskforce.

He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Purdue University, an MS in bioengineering from the University of Washington, and an MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

John Blair, MD

MedAllies
View Bio

John Blair, III, MD, F.A.C.S.

CEO - MedAllies

A. John Blair, III, MD, F.A.C.S., CEO of MedAllies, is a health care and technology executive with broad experience across the health care industry. MedAllies is a Designated QHIN under TEFCA and a Carequality Implementer. MedAllies operates a Direct Trust accredited Certificate Authority, Registration Authority, and Health Information Service Provider (HISP) running on the 2015 edition ONC certified MedAllies Direct Solution software. MedAllies is HITRUST CSF certified. MedAllies serves more than 800 hospitals, 5000 ambulatory provider organizations, 125,000 providers, 200,000 consumers, and dozens of vendor partners bringing together millions for a more fluid healthcare experience.

Matthew Eisenberg, MD

Stanford Health Care
View Bio

Matthew Eisenberg, MD

Associate Chief Medical Information Officer - Stanford Health Care

Dr. Matthew A. Eisenberg joined Stanford Health Care in early 2013 and is the Associate Chief Medical Information Officer.  Stanford Health Care is a not-for-profit academic healthcare system with leading edge clinical capabilities that is part of Stanford Medicine. Stanford Health Care seeks to heal humanity through science and compassion one patient at a time and its mission is to care, to educate, and to discover. In his role at Stanford Health Care, Dr. Eisenberg focuses on interoperability and health information exchange as well as government and regulatory reporting, health care analytics, patient reported outcomes and other uses of technology to meet our strategic initiatives.

Marilee Benson

Zen Healthcare IT
View Bio

Marilee Benson

President and Cofounder - Zen Healthcare IT

Bringing boundless positive energy to everything she takes on, Marilee is passionate about using interoperable technology to improve the lives and health outcomes for patients.

Marilee has thirty-two years of experience in the healthcare information technology sector, currently as President of Zen Healthcare IT, a company she co-founded in 2015. Under her leadership over the past seven years, Zen has become a trusted interoperability technology partner working with a diverse set of healthcare stakeholders including leading regional and national health information exchanges, healthcare IT / digital health vendors, provider groups, and managed care organizations.

She believes that collaboration is the key to removing interoperability barriers, and is active in a number of industry workgroups, including the Carequality Advisory Committee and the HIMSS Interoperability and HIE Committee.

Seth Selkow

Kaiser Permanente

SESSION

8

Government Affairs Roundtable

Policy and government affairs experts reflected on healthcare, health IT, and interoperability legislative and regulatory activity in 2024 and explored what could be on tap for 2025.

Panelists

Lauren Riplinger

AHIMA
View Bio

Lauren Riplinger

Chief Public Policy and Impact Officer - AHIMA

Lauren currently serves as AHIMA’s Chief Public Policy and Impact Officer. In this capacity, she is responsible for providing strategic and operational oversight over AHIMA’s advocacy and programmatic strategy to demonstrate mission impact. Prior to that, Lauren served as Vice President of Policy & Government Affairs at AHIMA, overseeing the organization’s policy and advocacy before Congress and various federal agencies. With two decades of healthcare policy experience, Lauren previously worked on Capitol Hill where she was actively involved in almost every aspect of a congressional office, including serving as Chief of Staff—a position that requires the ability to quickly synthesize multiple issues and adapt to constantly shifting priorities. Lauren received her JD from American University Washington College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University. She is admitted to practice law in New York.

Lindsay Austin

Troutman Pepper Strategies
View Bio

Lindsay Austin

Principal - Troutman Pepper Strategies

Lindsay Austin is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. office of Troutman Pepper Strategies. Lindsay has nearly 15 years of congressional and legislative experience coupled with her work as a Washington government relations representative to corporations, industry associations, non-profits, and universities. Lindsay works with clients across numerous sectors, with an emphasis on health care, health information technology, public health, food safety, agriculture, education, and a variety of other policy areas. Combining her political and policy know-how with her Washington and Georgia network, Lindsay excels at developing and executing strategy for clients at the federal level.

Chantal Worzala

Alazro Consulting
View Bio

Chantal Worzala, PhD, MPA

Principal - Alazro Consulting

Chantal Worzala is Principal at Alazro Consulting. An experienced policy expert, she helps technology companies, associations, provider organizations, and patient advocates to understand and navigate the digital health policy landscape. She has a broad range of expertise in federal health programs, digital health innovation and adoption, interoperability, privacy, and administrative simplification, Medicare payment policy, health care quality, and new models of care. Chantal previously served as vice president of health information policy at the American Hospital Association, where she was recognized as a leading voice on digital health policy. Chantal also served as Senior Analyst for the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. She holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Zeynep Sumer-King

NewYork-Presbyterian
View Bio

Zeynep Sumer-King

Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Global Services - NewYork-Presbyterian

Zeynep Sumer-King is Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Global Services at NewYork-Presbyterian. In this role she collaborates with senior leadership and enterprise cross-functional teams to identify and manage regulatory risks, provide strategic insight and oversee regulatory planning activities across the NYP enterprise. Ms. Zeynep Sumer-King is also responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with key regulatory bodies while leading the execution of special projects related to system development and expansion, namely NYP’s Certificate of Need program. She serves as the co-lead on the systems’ regulatory and process redesign initiative through utilization of digital transformation to facilitate standardization across the system. She also leads NYP’s Global Services operations, growth strategy and business development.

Prior to joining NYP in 2023, Ms. Sumer-King served in a number of leadership roles over a 16-year period at the Greater New York Hospital Association, most recently as Senior Vice President, for Regulatory and Professional Affairs. She oversaw a broad portfolio of priority issues on behalf of GNYHA’s nearly 200 member hospitals, including health information technology policy.

She holds a Masters in Science in Health Communication from Tufts University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Anthropology from Michigan State University.

SESSION

9

Directories as First Line of Defense

How do I locate the data that I need? This panel will explain how directories, sometimes called “phonebooks”, function, what they do, and their purpose beyond powering health information exchange. This panel discussed best practices for using directories across all frameworks and networks.

Panelists

Moderator

Alan Swenson

Carequality
View Bio

Alan Swenson

Executive Director - Carequality

As Executive Director of Carequality, Alan Swenson guides the development and implementation of the Carequality Interoperability Framework, the leading, nationwide trusted exchange framework enabling health data sharing across and among different types of networks and service providers. First implemented in July 2016, the framework now supports the exchange of more than 300M documents a month across more than 4,200 hospitals and 50,000 clinics. Alan also leads Carequality in supporting The Sequoia Project as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE). Alan has spent more than a decade focused on health IT interoperability. Before leading Carequality, he helped lead an exponential increase in patient record sharing through direct collaboration with hundreds of healthcare systems and provider organizations, EHR vendors, HIEs, HISPs, PHRs, payers, government agencies, and other digital health platforms. He has also volunteered with The Sequoia Project, National Association for the Support of Long-Term Care (NASL), CommonWell Health Alliance, DirectTrust, National Quality Forum, and HIMSS, among other industry interoperability initiatives.

Justin McMartin

Surescripts
View Bio

Justin McMartin

Manager of Interoperability Affairs - Surescripts

Justin McMartin is the Manager of Interoperability Affairs at Surescripts. His focus is on advancing interoperability policy and standards through common sense technologies that improve healthcare in the United States.

In Justin’s nearly 20 years of experience in health information technology industry he has served in roles leading product development, marketing, implementation and support of interoperability solutions. He also plays an active role in the trust framework community by participating in various DirectTrust and Carequality workgroups and committees. For fun, Justin is in his final year of law school at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and enjoys raising his small herd of Shorthorn cattle in rural Minnesota with his family.

Liz Lewis

CommonWell Health Alliance
View Bio

Liz Lewis

Director of Product - CommonWell Health Alliance

Liz Lewis is responsible for overseeing the execution of the Alliance vision and roadmap both with the expansion of new use cases and enhancing existing ones.

Liz’s journey into the health care and technology space began many years ago, when she worked at her dad’s cardiology practice in Parkersburg, WV. There, she helped the practice transition from paper charts to their first electronic health record.

Liz was the Product Manager of Interoperability Solutions at Greenway Health, one of the founding members of CommonWell, where she was the P&L owner for all interoperability solutions including Greenway Exchange, CommonWell, Direct Messaging, APIs, and medical device integration. While in this role, Liz was responsible for overseeing the development and integration of CommonWell services into the Intergy platform. She also served as the Deployment and Utilization Co-Chair for CommonWell.

Liz received her Master of Business Administration with a specialization in Data Analytics from University of North Carolina Wilmington, a Master of Arts in Communication from Missouri State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication with a focus on Healthcare and Organizational Communication from Ohio University.

Liz lives in Wilmington, NC, with her husband, children and dog, Dino.

Mike McCune

eHealth Exchange
View Bio

Mike McCune

Program Director of Solutions Engineering - eHealth Exchange

Michael McCune is the Program Director of Solutions Engineering at the eHealth Exchange. Michael’s focus is on healthcare network interoperability, advancing use cases involving HL7 FHIR and improving the utilization of FHIR-based network directories.

Michael has played a leading role facilitating the integration between the eHealth Exchange and Carequality networks. He manages directory usage for the eHealth Exchange by supporting the rollout of a HL7 FHIR R4 based directory which has added the ability to publish provider locations to increase transparency and to reveal the relationships between HIEs, provider systems and provider locations.

Michael played a significant role in guiding directory services implementation for TEFCA and is currently a member of the TEFCA FHIR Implementation Advisory Group.

SESSION

10

QHIN Dating Game

Which QHIN likes getting caught in the rain? Join us for Dating Game style lightening rounds to get to know the Candidate and Designated QHINs and their service offerings.

Contestants

Jay Nakashima

eHealth Exchange
View Bio

Jay Nakashima

Executive Director - eHealth Exchange

Jay Nakashima leads the eHealth Exchange, the nation’s largest health information network which operates in all 50 states. Incubated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as an ONC initiative, the eHealth Exchange is now an independent non-profit health technology firm dedicated to the public good.

After years in leadership roles at providers, payers, and health IT vendors, Jay now focuses on improving interoperability to improve patient care.

Derek Plansky

Health Gorilla
View Bio

Derek Plansky

Senior Vice President of Product Development - Health Gorilla

Senior Vice President of Product Development Derek Plansky joined Health Gorilla in May and guides product vision, strategy, design, and development. Previously, Plansky was president and founder of Informatic Ideas, a consultancy firm. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Product Innovation at Sandlot Solutions, a SaaS-based HIE solution, and Director of Solutions Architecture at MedPlus, now Quest Diagnostics. He was also the Director of Solutions Engineering at Seisint, where he productized an early-stage big data solution that is now the core of LexisNexis’ Risk Information and Analytics division.

Jon Elwell

Kno2
View Bio

Jon Elwell

CEO - Kno2

Jon Elwell is CEO at Kno2. He leads the company in its mission to solve connectivity and interoperability for the healthcare industry, and truly transform the way patient information is communicated and exchanged. Elwell working side by side with Kno2's founder, Therasa Bell was initially focused on charting a course for post-acute where proper connectivity was lacking. Jon and his team are currently driving the Kno2 Network to become the largest healthcare network enabling the secure, effortless, and maximized exchange of patient information that spans the entire healthcare ecosystem.

John Blair, MD

MedAllies
View Bio

John Blair, III, MD, F.A.C.S.

CEO - MedAllies

John Blair, CEO of MedAllies, is a health care and technology executive with broad experience across the health care industry. MedAllies securely delivers vital health information to impact care by operating multiple nationwide interoperable networks supporting all healthcare constituents. MedAllies focuses on optimizing the adoption and usage of healthcare interoperability for the people, systems and services connected to our MedAllies networks, eliminating information care gaps and fostering a truly interoperable and connected future. We serve more than 700 hospitals, 100,000 providers and dozens of vendor partners bringing together millions for a more fluid healthcare experience. MedAllies operates a Direct Trust accredited Certificate Authority, Registration Authority, and Health Information Service Provider running on the 2015 edition ONC certified MedAllies Direct Solution software. MedAllies is a Carequality Implementor supporting treatment and Individua Access Services. MedAllies is HITRUST CSF certified and is aligning with QHIN requirements with the intention to apply during the first application round.

Paul Wilder

CommonWell Health Alliance
View Bio

Paul L Wilder

Executive Director - CommonWell Health Alliance

With over two decades in health IT, Paul L Wilder has held various roles focusing on imaging, clinical informatics and interoperability. As the Executive Director of CommonWell Health Alliance, he runs the not-for-profit trade association devoted to the simple vision that health data should be available to individuals and caregivers regardless of where care occurs. CommonWell members have deployed CommonWell services across its network in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. More than 25k provider sites are utilizing these services daily.

Matt Koehler

Surescript Health Information Network (Candidate QHIN)
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Matt Koehler

Vice President Product Innovation - Surescript

Matt Koehler is Vice President Product Innovation and has responsibility for Surescripts’ interoperability and value-based care product portfolio. Matt’s entire 20+ year career has been in healthcare, having held a variety of leadership positions across health plans, healthcare technology companies, and start-ups. Matt is passionate about improving our healthcare system and loves digging into the thorny problems that live at the intersection of technology and healthcare operations.
Matt lives in Portland, OR with his wife, three children, and dog. When not helping to solve the messy problems of healthcare interoperability, Matt enjoys spending time in the outdoors with his family, cooking various foods involving wild fermentation, and losing track of time in his woodshop.

Ben Rosen

Netsmart (Candidate QHIN)
View Bio

Ben Rosen, BSN RN

Senior Client Success Manager - Netsmart

Ben Rosen is a Senior Client Success Manager and business unit owner for the Interoperability solution suite at Netsmart. With over a decade of healthcare experience beginning as a registered nurse, Ben has led numerous initiatives to integrate healthcare systems and enhance data sharing across the care continuum. His dedication to advancing healthcare interoperability drives his active involvement in industry initiatives and standards organizations, where he provides insight for frameworks such as HL7 FHIR, USCDI, and others. Ben holds a degree in Kinesiology from Kansas State University and a Nursing degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Thursday, December 12

SESSION

11

Welcome and Chairman's Remarks

The Chair of Carequality Board of Directors opened the meeting, sharing the framework’s 2024 priorities and latest TEFCA convergence strategy.

Speaker

Seth Selkow

Chairman, Carequality Board of Directors

SESSION

12

Navigating a Disagreement

The dispute within Carequality was the first of its kind. In today’s tension between the need to share and the need to safeguard patient data, anyone may find themselves in a disagreement. Panelists shared the complexities, lessons learned, and framework and process enhancements.

Panelists

Moderator

Erin Whaley

Troutman Pepper
View Bio

Erin Whaley

Partner - Troutman Pepper

Erin represents health care providers and payers on the full spectrum of legal issues they confront on a daily basis. Her regulatory experience includes advising clients on compliance with the plethora of federal laws that govern the health care industry, including Stark, the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), the False Claims Act, and HIPAA, as well as state laws including state licensure, corporate practice of medicine, and certificates of need. In addition to proactively addressing compliance needs and structuring transactions to comply with the complex regulatory framework, she assists clients with investigations and resolving compliance concerns.

Erin’s understanding of the health care landscape allows her to provide valuable advice and guidance on significant corporate matters such as mergers and acquisitions, commercial contracting, physician contracting, and joint venture opportunities. She works closely with her clients to understand their business objectives and help them meet those objectives while remaining compliant with the law.

As a complement to her traditional health care practice, Erin has developed a niche focus in health information technology. Her health IT experience includes representing providers in the negotiation of various health IT contracts involving, among other things, electronic health records, revenue cycle management, population health, and telehealth. She also represents health IT companies on corporate and regulatory issues, including customer contracting, joint ventures, funding opportunities, privacy and security compliance (including HIPAA and state laws), AKS compliance, and compliance with various state laws, including corporate practice of medicine and telehealth. Her experience representing both providers and IT vendors gives her unique insights that benefit her clients.

Erin has co-authored many publications on health care-related topics and has been featured in various news publications based on her deep knowledge of the industry and the laws and regulations that govern it.

Hans Buitendijk

Oracle Health
View Bio

Hans Buitendijk

Senior Director, Interoperability Strategy - Oracle Health

For more than 40 years I have been involved in the development of HIT solutions, client consulting on strategic IT planning, health care application development and implementations, large scale business process re-engineering and systems integration, and complex project management, bridging the gap between business process optimization and IT support.

I am originally from The Netherlands and am a graduate of the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands and have a Masters of Science in Management Science and Industrial Engineering.

As Senior Director, Interoperability Strategy at Oracle Health, I’m primarily focused on establishing and propagating industry standards to enable interoperability across the diverse systems prevalent in health IT. I represent Oracle Health in various industry organizations/initiatives to advance interoperability such as HL7, Argonaut, Da Vinci, EHRA, CommonWell Health Alliance, Carequality, and The Sequoia Project to increase adoption of standards-based interoperability.

Paul Wilder

CommonWell Health Alliance
View Bio

Paul Wilder

Executive Director - CommonWell Health Alliance

With over two decades in health IT, Paul L Wilder has held various roles focusing on imaging, clinical informatics and interoperability. As the Executive Director of CommonWell Health Alliance, he runs the not-for-profit trade association devoted to the simple vision that health data should be available to individuals and caregivers regardless of where care occurs. CommonWell members have deployed CommonWell services across its network in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. More than 25k provider sites are utilizing these services daily.

Sagnik Bhattacharya

Rhapsody
View Bio

Sagnik Bhattacharya

Chief Executive Officer - Rhapsody

Sagnik is an industry veteran, accomplished in connecting with clinical leaders, CIOs, CMIOs, and other industry stakeholders to create positive patient outcomes. As CEO, Sagnik is passionate about customer success and simplifying the complexity of health data exchange. Prior to joining Rhapsody, Sagnik served as EVP and General Manager of HealthEdge, where he led the company’s core solutions for payers. Prior to that, he served as Head of Payer & Provider Initiatives at PatientPing, accelerating development and go-to-market of a national patient-centered care coordination platform. In addition, Sagnik had a distinguished career at Epic where he led the Population Health and Outpatient EHR divisions. Sagnik is an active participant in national interoperability conversations, serving on the Board of Directors for Carequality.

SESSION

13

Interoperability Matters

Interoperability Matters Steering Committee members shared the big plans for changes coming in 2025 to ensure this popular flagship program continues to deliver value for Sequoia members and the interoperability community at large.

Panelists

Melanie Marcus

Surescripts
View Bio

Melanie Marcus

Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer - Surescripts

Melanie joined Surescripts in 2017, bringing with her more than 20 years of experience working at the intersection of marketing, technology and healthcare. Based in our Arlington, Virginia, office, she loves serving as “chief storyteller,” and hosts Surescripts’ award-winning podcast, There’s A Better Way: Smart Talk on Healthcare and Technology, helping people understand how technology unites our fragmented healthcare system. Melanie is passionate about leading an organizational focus on “customer obsession” where we put customer value first as we work to increase patient safety, lower costs and ensure quality care. Melanie currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Sequoia Project and the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer. She also serves as NCPDP Foundation's National Advisory Council (NAC) Chair for Role and Value of the Pharmacist.

After earning her MBA from Boston University, she built her career at McKesson Health Solutions, taking on progressively pivotal roles focused on marketplace positioning of solutions, and developing successful action plans to reach customers. As Vice President of Strategic Marketing, she led marketing for one of McKesson’s largest technology units, championing its role in thought leadership, content marketing and social media. Before that, she gained considerable industry knowledge through key roles in strategic planning and marketing for Sutter Health in Sacramento, California, and Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

William Gregg, MD

HCA Healthcare
View Bio

William Gregg, MD

Vice President of Interoperability - HCA Healthcare

William (Bill) Gregg, MD, MS, MPH, joined HCA Healthcare in 2014 and serves as Vice President of Interoperability. In addition to his medical degree, Dr. Gregg holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned master’s degrees in Clinical Informatics and Public Health at Vanderbilt University and was a VA Quality Scholars Fellow. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. At a national level, he is Co-Chair of the Sequoia Project’s Data Usability Workgroup whose charge is to identify practical solutions to make interoperability work better for clinicians and patients. Dr. Gregg also serves on the Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Leadership Council and the SMART Health IT Advisory Committee. Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Gregg served as an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and was the Director of Population Health Informatics. He helped develop successful clinical programs and led software development in population health and clinical decision support. His primary focus is on system level integration of technology, interoperability, and processes to support transformation of clinical care in our rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

SESSION

14

Managing Privacy and Consent

As the value of health data has grown, so too has the tension between patient privacy and the need to enable health information sharing. This panel discussed how we can better align the beneficial outcomes of data sharing with appropriate exchange that meets patients’ privacy expectations.

Panelists

Moderator

Steven Lane, MD

Health Gorilla
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Dr. Steven Lane

Chief Medical Officer - Health Gorilla

Health Gorilla's Chief Medical Officer Steven Lane, MD, MPH, has worked in Clinical Informatics for over 25 years, most recently as the Clinical Informatics Director of Privacy, Information Security, and Interoperability at Sutter Health, and has been a primary care physician for more than 35 years. Dr. Lane is chairman of the Carequality Steering Committee and a member of The Sequoia Project board of directors. He is also on the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC), the HIMSS Interoperability & HIE Committee, and the Da Vinci Project Clinical Advisory Council.

Mel Soliz

Velatura HIE Corporation
View Bio

Melissa Soliz

Partner, Coppersmith Brockelman PLC and Outside Counsel - Velatura HIE Corporation

Melissa Soliz is a partner with Coppersmith Brockelman, PLC in Phoenix, Arizona. Her regulatory health law practice focuses on compliance with data privacy, access and interoperability laws (such as HIPAA, 42 C.F.R. Part 2, the ONC Information Blocking Rule, the CMS interoperability mandates, and state laws), health information exchange (HIE) (including the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)), behavioral health/substance use disorder law issues, data breaches and OCR investigations, as well as clinical research compliance and contracting.
Melissa regularly speaks in local and national forums on these topics and has been active in state and federal policy making on data privacy and HIE issues. She is the President of the Arizona Society of Healthcare Attorneys and is recognized by Chambers, Best Lawyers© and Southwest Super Lawyers: Rising Stars© for her work in health law. She is a Phoenix Business Journal (PBJ), 40 under 40 recipient (Class of 2023) and 2023 Managed Healthcare Executive: Emerging Leader in Healthcare.

Nichole Sweeney, J.D.

CRISP Shared Services
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Nichole Sweeney, J.D.

General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer - CRISP Shared Services

Nichole Sweeney, J.D., is General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer for CRISP Shared Services, Inc., a managed services organization providing services to Health Information Exchanges and Health Data Utilities across the country. She also holds the same titles for CRISP, the state-designated regional HIE for Maryland. In these roles she advises the CEO, Senior Leadership, and the Board of Directors on all legal priorities pertaining to the organization including privacy, HIPAA and data use matters, strategic initiatives and their implementation, negotiation and management of partner agreements, and core operational issues and optimization. Additionally, Nichole leverages her rich experience in public policy to strategically inform advocacy efforts for interoperability matters at the local, regional, and national level. Nichole also serves on the Carequality Steering Committee, the TEFCA Transitional Council, and is the Chair of the Protected Health Commission in Maryland. For more than a decade prior to joining CRISP, Nichole held policy roles at a non-profit operator of federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) that assist the U.S. government with scientific research and analysis, development and acquisition, and systems engineering and integration. Throughout her tenure, she has had the unique opportunity to work hand-in-hand with agencies across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) umbrella to strategically plan and develop their regulatory implementation of major healthcare legislation. Nichole partnered with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in drafting and implementing their healthcare information technology (IT) interoperability regulations.

Matthew Spielman

Edifecs
View Bio

Matthew Spielman

Manager of Strategy and Roadmap for FHIR - Edifecs

Matthew brings to the discussion over 25 years of experience managing, implementing, and developing interoperable healthcare IT solutions. For the last 14 years, he has worked in the interoperability space developing platforms for data aggregation and sharing at the IDN, State, Regional and National level . In his current role, he manages the Strategy and Roadmap for FHIR at Edifecs. He brings to the discussion a unique perspective on the convergence of clinical and payer data interoperability and consent, which has been made even more important with the CMS 0057-F rule.

Adam Davis, MD

Sutter Health

SESSION

15

Whole-Person Integrated Care

Interoperability initially focused on sharing clinical data between hospitals and doctors. How can we advance interoperability to connect everyone on the care team working to keep us well? This panel discussed pharmacies, laboratories, telehealth, and others that need to collaborate for better, cost effective and coordinated care.

Panelists

Moderator

Ben Rosen

Netsmart
View Bio

Ben Rosen, BSN RN

Senior Client Success Manager - Netsmart

Ben Rosen is a Senior Client Success Manager and business unit owner for the Interoperability solution suite at Netsmart. With over a decade of healthcare experience beginning as a registered nurse, Ben has led numerous initiatives to integrate healthcare systems and enhance data sharing across the care continuum. His dedication to advancing healthcare interoperability drives his active involvement in industry initiatives and standards organizations, where he provides insight for frameworks such as HL7 FHIR, USCDI, and others. Ben holds a degree in Kinesiology from Kansas State University and a Nursing degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Matt Becker

Kno2
View Bio

Matt Becker

Vice President of Interoperability - Kno2

Matt is the Vice President of Interoperability at Kno2, where his focus is on improving interoperability across the entire continuum of care. He is responsible for overseeing specific projects aimed to extend interoperability into hard-to-reach markets, and groups not previously part of government incentive programs to drive interoperability, such as LTPAC, behavioral health, EMS and more. Matt actively volunteers and contributes to standards development and rulemaking. He is an elected member of the Carequality Steering Committee. He also participates with CommonWell, DirectTrust™, HIMSS, NASL, PAICO Project, The Sequoia Project, and 360X Referral Management Protocol among other industry interoperability initiatives.

Pooja Babbrah

NCPDP

Jaffer Traish

FindHelp
View Bio

Jaffer Traish

Chief Operating Officer - FindHelp

As the COO at FindHelp, Jaffer is focused on helping all people in need within their communities. Across government, healthcare, education and more, connecting people to the programs that serve them is Jaffer's passion. Over the past 25 years, Jaffer has collaborated with more than 200 health systems and payers on health and wellness innovation and health equity. Jaffer is driven to improve health for individuals, sustainability for institutions, and long term community partnerships. He resides in Austin, TX.

Stephanie Broderick

Clinical Architecture
View Bio

Stephanie Broderick

EVP, Strategic Initiatives - Clinical Architecture

Stephanie is a healthcare IT leader with nearly 30 years of healthcare IT experience. As EVP of Strategic Initiatives for Clinical Architecture, Stephanie is responsible for strategic industry relationships and partnerships. Stephanie is a member of the AMIA IPC, Advocacy Vice-Chair for HIMSS National, Advocacy Chair for Colorado HIMSS, an active member of CommonWell Health Alliance, the American Hospital Association, and The Sequoia Project where she participates in the Data Usability, Taking Root, and Consumer Engagement Workgroups. Stephanie has held senior leadership roles in software engineering, product management, IT, and consulting at Clinical Architecture, FDB, and Medi-Span. Stephanie’s hobbies include spending time with family, her vizslas, deep sea fishing, travel, exploring Colorado’s beautiful landscape on the back of an Indian Pursuit, sports of all sorts but especially football, hockey, and lacrosse.

SESSION

16

Unconference Sessions

Interactive peer-to-peer collaboration and learning. Attendees could choose from a variety of topics for participant-driven discussion in small groups facilitated by staff and guest experts.

  • Measuring & Reporting on Interoperability
  • Bolstering Trust in Exchange
  • Directories: Best Practices & Enabling Transparency

SESSION

17

Headline News: A Security Breach Case Study

There’s nothing like breaking news of a healthcare data breach to create a chilling effect for health data interoperability. TEFCA CISO Johnathan Coleman hosted FBI Special Agent Daniel Polk in a fireside chat about the anatomy of an attack using real world examples.

Panelists

Featured Speaker

Daniel Polk

Special Agent, FBI Atlanta
View Bio

Daniel Polk

Special Agent - FBI Atlanta Division

Daniel Polk, a special agent for the FBI Atlanta Division, investigates cyber-criminal activities including large-scale cyber intrusions and cryptocurrency theft cases. He also serves as an FBI crisis negotiator and public affairs officer. Before joining the FBI, Daniel worked for a tech company specializing in IT application performance and analytics. Prior to his tech career, he worked in education, launching a public charter school as a teacher and Dean of Students.

Moderator

Johnathan Coleman

TEFCA RCE
View Bio

Johnathan Coleman

Principal - Security Risk Solutions, Inc.

Johnathan Coleman currently serves as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the TEFCA Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) and provides SME support to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT and the Defense Health Agency (DHA). He previously worked as Coordinator for the ONC Standards and Interoperability (S&I) Framework and led several projects including the Data Segmentation for Privacy (DS4P) and Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Data Tagging projects. Johnathan has a BEng in Aeromechanical Systems Engineering from the Royal Military College of Science in UK, maintains professional security certifications including CISSP, CISM and CRISC, and co-chairs the Community Based Care and Privacy workgroup at Health Level 7 (HL7) International.

SESSION

18

Little FHIRs Everywhere - and Spreading

This panel discussed the expansion of FHIR in TEFCA and elsewhere as Payers and Providers ramp up exchange. Learn more about the Payer to Payer FHIR API workgroup and the TEFCA FHIR Implementation Advisory Group and connectivity plans for payer-to-provider and payer-to-payer exchange using FHIR.

Panelists

Moderator

Nancy Beavin

Medica
View Bio

Nancy Beavin

Director Provider Connectivity - Medica

For the past 10 years Nancy Beavin has been driving payer interoperability and standards for payer-provider capabilities for Medica and the industry. She has been participating in the interop, standards arena for over 20, years participating with HL7 and other industry organizations. Mrs. Beavin is a current member of the Carequality Steering Committee and the Sequoia Board of Directors. She is the Co-chair of Epic’s Payer Governance Council and on the DaVinci Coordinating Committee and CARIN Alliance. Mrs. Beavin participated in the USCDI task force for ONC and is a past member of the Kentucky HIMSS board.

Robert Oakley

Evernorth Health Services
View Bio

Bob Oakley

Strategy & Interoperability Lead, Physician Innovation – Evernorth

Bob Oakley leads innovation teams at Evernorth focused on accelerating clinical data access and utilization to improve patient and physician experiences and drive the adoption of interoperable payer-provider capabilities. He’s a member of the DaVinci Operating Committee and is Co-Chair of the Interoperability Matters Payer-to-Payer workgroup with a focus on advocating for increased payer and provide collaboration.

Jason Vogt

MEDITECH
View Bio

Jason Vogt

Development Manager, APIs and Structured Documents - MEDITECH

He has served as the Chair of CommonWell’s Standards, Technology, & Implementation Group (STIG), which develops functionality to advance the alliance’s vision of accessible health data, since 2018. He is a member of many CommonWell committees and workgroups, including Data Quality and FHIR. As an active member of FHIR related workgroups and accelerators including Argonaut, FAST and Carequality, Jason focuses on advocating for increased interoperability and use of FHIR standards.

Nihit Bajaj

Epic
View Bio

Nihit Bajaj

Interoperability Lead - Epic

Nihit is an interoperability lead at Epic helping customers support Care Everywhere, Epic’s interoperability platform for patient record exchange. Additionally, within the industry, Nihit serves on the Carequality’s Advisory council and is on the Sequoia’s Interoperability Matters Steering Committee.

Michael Westover

Providence
View Bio

Michael Westover

Vice President of Data Partnerships and Informatics - Providence

Michael Westover serves as the Vice President of Data Partnerships and Informatics for Providence, a healthcare system with 120,000 caregivers, over 50 hospitals, and more than 1,000 clinics. He developed Providence’s data exchange strategy and the interoperability infrastructure used to support over 150 Value Based Care risk arrangements and government programs. Michael graduated with honors from Brigham Young University and has a master’s degree with an emphasis in healthcare management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Download the latest Interoperability Matters Resources

Enjoy the latest resources on healthcare interoperability, information sharing, TEFCA, and much more from The Sequoia Project’s Interoperability Matters initiative.

Data Usability Taking Root Movement co-sponsored by AHIMA

Data Usability Implementation Readiness Checklist

Prepare for implementation of the Data Usability Implementation Guide V1.0 with this free technical resource.

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Privacy and Consent Workgroup

2024 Essential Reading

Grapple with the complexity of privacy & consent with essential reading from subject matter experts. This reading list informs our own upcoming publication.

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Pharmacy Workgroup

Focus on Pharmacy

Expand your interoperability horizons with learnings from our series of focus sessions about advancing pharmacy interoperability to support clinical patient services.

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Information Sharing Workgroup

Information Sharing Toolkit

Apply practical operational guidance created for provider organizations, HIEs, and vendors that are subject to info blocking regulation.

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Data Usability Workgroup

Implementation Guide V2.0

Download V2.0 which identified priority use cases that can be readily adopted. Expanded guidance with added requirements for HL7® FHIR®, HL7 v2.x and HL7 C-CDA, and a new category for laboratory data.

Review Guide
Payer-to-Payer FHIR® API Implementation Workgroup

Payer-to-Payer Interoperability Podcast

Listen in on the WEDI interview with the Payer-to-Payer FHIR API Implementation Workgroup co-chairs to hear about the challenges of CMS 0057.

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Consumer Engagement Strategy Workgroup

Pain and Progress: Consumer Strategies

Be inspired by one patient’s experience with information blocking and how this workgroup will empower patients in the future.

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Public Health Workgroup

Public Health Interoperability Policy Roadmap

Coming Soon! Watch for a public health and STLTs roadmap to progress health IT interoperability in 2025.
A sneak preview is available now!

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